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Add tasks to Smart Lists without having them vanish if they don't meet the Smart List criteria

raymond.bergmark Power Poster says:
Mainly using smart list when adding tasks in the classic web site, it's annoying having them disappear before I'm finished editing them.

All of my smart lists are so complex (according to RTM ;-) that the search criteria are deemed ambigous, rendering the new task completely empty of all meta information. That in turn means that it disappears from view the second I press return.

I would love it if a newly added task could remain on screen until I was done with it.

An idea to solve this:
When a task is added (or edited, even including multiple tasks in multi-edit) the task is selected. As long as it's selected, it should remain in view, even if it (temporarily) doesn't meet the smart list criteria. As soon as it's no longer selected, it may disappear from view.

Couldn't take long to fix for Cow should she get some small pointers from Bob, I suppose she's getting up to speed by now.
Posted at 12:04pm on January 11, 2008
ranbarton Power Poster says:
I think this idea shows real promise. I love the ability of adding tasks to smartlists, but it's frustrating when they 'vanish.' This could be a real antidote.
Posted 16 years ago
jkorn says:
I agree that this poses a usability challenge. I've encountered the same problem and wished for a similar fix. Thanks!
Posted 16 years ago
bkudria says:
I have a simple fix - define an @in list to act as an inbox, and make it a smart list with terms: not (list:urgent or list:wait ...) - ie, a task appears in @in if it isn't in any of the other lists. Then, you can be as arbitrary as you want want with your other smart lists, and if a task disappears, it'll be in @in.
Posted 16 years ago
raymond.bergmark Power Poster says:
Well, I have a Check smart list where these disappearing tasks will be until I have added the minimal meta info I want (duration+location). However, I want to add these two before the task disappears.

New idea: As I have this smart list Check, I can add this list to for example @Work:
location:@work OR list:Check
Posted 16 years ago
raymond.bergmark Power Poster says:
Just tested this, works really well. The newly added task that normally would disappear from view now remains on screen and can be edited.
Posted 16 years ago
raymond.bergmark Power Poster says:
Sorry, missed the closing (/b) above , works better now...
Posted 16 years ago
jkorn says:
Another approach that's now working well for me... Create a smart list defined as addedWithin:"1 day of today"

Shows only the few items I've added today. I use this list when adding new tasks, and don't have to search through a long list of tasks to find the one I just entered.
Posted 16 years ago
(closed account) says:
Just the yellow highlight notification saying "$task_title Added to list blah" seems like it would be sufficient.
Posted 12 years ago
sferencik says:
This is still an issue. I'm in a smart list, pick a task, edit it and after some modification it simply vanishes. (Some modifications happen in multiple steps, e.g. I need to modify the location and the tags - but after I've modified the location the task disappears and I never get a chance to modify the tags).

My feature request would be to somehow treat the task I'm working on as "pinned". I'd "pin" the task, do all I want with it, then release it. Only then would it vanish from the view.

Another possible option: allow me to edit that task in a kind of pop-up dialog: I open the task in a dialog, edit all I want, then I okay that dialog and the task disappears from the underlying smart list.
Posted 7 years ago
(closed account) says:
Good idea! I especially like the possible solutions proposed by sferencik.

In the meantime, there is now a link at the top alert when a task is created and disappears which goes right to the task, so that helps. But it would be better, I think, to not have to leave the Smart List I'm in to complete the edit or creation.
Posted 2 years ago
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